Ventura Theatre Caught in Financial Squeeze : Music: The venue is a key element in the downtown economy. It has been hit with a rent-related court action that could lead to eviction.

The Ventura Concert Theatre, a key element in Ventura’s downtown economy and the county’s leading pop-music venue, has been targeted by creditors claiming more than $35,000 in unpaid rent and advertising bills.

Gary Folgner, operator of the 850-seat theater since 1988, discounted the importance of the alleged debts and asserted that he had been “making payments on the rent.”

Folgner acknowledged, however, that the theater’s finances have been strained by costs of renovating the historic building, wooing audiences and weathering the current economic recession.

“The first year, I lost $300,000,” Folgner said. “The second year, I lost $200,000. Last year, I only lost $10,000. I worked three years to get (the theater) where it is. I’m not going to let it go.”

Among those with an interest in Folgner’s success are neighboring merchants, city officials and at least a few of the performers who have played the venue. Aside from its importance as the most frequent presenter of major music acts in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, the facility is considered a cornerstone of downtown Ventura’s fragile economy.

“As you can imagine, putting 500 or 1,000 people downtown a night is great for the restaurant business,” said David Valeska, project manager of Ventura’s downtown redevelopment district. “The loss of the Ventura Theatre would cut down on our tourist business quite a bit.”

“I love the theater,” said Chris Hillman, a 12-year Ventura resident who has played the facility three times as leader of the Desert Rose Band and once as a member of the reunited Byrds. “It’s a beautiful building, and Gary Folgner’s taste is wonderful, everything from Travis Tritt to The Fixx,” he said, naming a country singer and a progressive British rock band.

Among those claiming debts is the Ventura’s landlord.

On April 4, Chestnut Properties Ltd. filed an unlawful detainer action in Ventura County Superior Court, alleging debts of $33,271.07 for January and February rent, insurance and taxes.

Such action can eventually lead to eviction, but only if no settlement is reached and a court rules against the tenant. Angelo Elardo, a Ventura dentist and co-owner of Chestnut Properties, declined to comment last week.

Folgner, who is three years into a 10-year lease agreement on the property, said late last week that he knew nothing about the court filing. “We’ve been making payments on the rent,” he said.

The theater also faces other alleged debts on a smaller scale, and has cut back on some of its traditional advertising expenses.

On Feb. 7, BAM/Mictrotimes, publisher of the music magazine BAM, filed a Ventura Municipal Court complaint alleging that the theater owed $1,955 in overdue advertising fees. And officials at radio station KBBY-FM said the Ventura Theatre has owed about $700 for more than six months.

“I personally wrote a certified letter to Gary Folgner,” said Marilyn Woods, KBBY’s general manager. “But he just wouldn’t respond. Two times for sure, he told my general sales manager that he’d meet her at the theater with a check, and he just didn’t show up.”

Nancy Cloutier, publisher of the Ventura County and Coast Reporter, the area’s weekly entertainment newspaper, declined to comment on the status of the Ventura Theatre’s account. She did confirm that the Reporter hasn’t been running Ventura Theatre ads since late March.

Other local businesses reported nothing unusual in their dealings with the theater.

“Our relationship with the Ventura Theatre is very solid,” said Mark Duncan, sales manager at radio station KCQR-FM in Santa Barbara. On April 20, the station is co-promoting a concert by the rock band Toy Matinee at the theater.

Folgner, who operates the Coach House venue in San Juan Capistrano and the Raymond Theater in Pasadena, said the Ventura is presenting shows as usual. Rather than curtailing operations, he said, the theater is booking a wider variety of events, including more local bands, comedy nights, proms and wedding receptions.

Folgner, a well-known figure in Southern California music-business circles, began booking big-name rock acts into the 380-seat Coach House in 1986.

His most recent expansion came late last November, when he opened the 1,925-seat Raymond Theater. There, too, Folgner’s business has suffered setbacks.

He said he paid $2.5 million for the Raymond and an adjacent lot--all but $100,000 of it borrowed. Within two weeks, the Pasadena Fire Department ordered the Raymond closed, citing Folgner’s failure to meet a number of fire-safety regulations. At the time, Folgner estimated that the closure would cost him $40,000 in ticket refunds and guarantees paid to acts scheduled to appear the following weekend.

The Raymond has since reopened but has fewer bookings than the Ventura Theatre or the Coach House, and faces competition from many Los Angeles County venues of comparable size.

Folgner took over the Ventura Theatre, he said, after “driving through Ventura, coming back down Highway 126 from a ski trip to Mammoth. I saw the theater and saw that it was for lease and thought that Ventura would be a good area to market from.”

In the early months of his tenancy, Folgner estimated, he spent $250,000 on renovation of the theater’s sound and lighting equipment and installation of a kitchen. More recently, he said, the war in the Persian Gulf took away much of this area’s concert-going military population, and many acts cut back on touring.

Now, he said, “it looks like the entertainment business has been breaking out a little bit again. The war’s over, and bands are beginning to travel a bit more. It’s still tough, but in the last few days, I’ve been inundated with offers from acts ranging from Michael McDonald to The Fixx.”

Folgner’s worst fear, he said, is that the area’s audiences simply don’t have enough interest in live popular music to support an 850-seat concert hall.

“I thought there would be a much bigger local market,” Folgner acknowledged. While an act such as the jazz-rock group Spyro Gyra, for instance, fills larger venues elsewhere in the country, Folgner said, “I’ll have to work hard to sell 600 tickets.”

Times correspondent Todd Everett contributed to this story.